December 1, 2001.

Assault on Mars, Rogue Trader Tournament.

Mars, PA.

This was the first 40k RTT I attended. I had not played 40k for well over a year, and had just recently dug out the figures in a fit of inspiration, and started re-modeling and re-painting them. Soon after I had started, I got an email announcing the tournament in Mars.

The tourney was put on by the Pittsburg Iron Legion, and managed by local Outriders Bill & Jeff. There were 36 or so players, from PA, OH, MD, WV and possibly further. Apparently even a few of the guys from GWHQ drove out, and brought a display case of unreleased miniatures (new chaos marines, noise marines, necrons, skaven, among others). It was a great time.

So, on to a brief report...
 

GAME ONE

Game one was against the IG. My oppoonent (Kato?) had driven from MD. I'm from OH, so we had driven a combined 6+ hours do face off. The scenario was Dawn Raid. In an attempt to jump right into we set up before even looking at the scenario sheets, so I placed a huge steep hill in the center, which really made the game a bit odd. After taking a quick glance at the scenario sheet, for deployment, we jumped right into the game without reading further, which later on cost us both...

This is around turn two or three. I made a run with most of my stuff counter-clockwise around the hill. The predator on the left was going to sit tight and try to take out as much armour before it cot hosed.

By this point, multiple disasters (blown and scattered rhino + botched summoning) had happened to place a majority of my army between the hill and the ruins & destroyed rhino (the one on the left). The big gaping hole in the center of my mob is where the battle cannon shot deviated, and killed a bunch of my guys, including a terminator and my lord in terminator armour! A serious blow so early in the game! I did manage to assault one squad of plague marines into the IG line (near the upper right) which ended predictably.

So this second pic is near the end of the game. The plague marines in the upper right ran behind the two Leman Russ tanks, and tore/melta gunned through the armour. Everyone else was mostly in combat, although the guys on the far right were still trying to take down the conqueror.

Since neither one of us really paid much attention to the scenario, we just went at it and tried to kill each other off. Victory was decided on controll of table quarters alone. 3 were contested, one was totally empty. But the kicker was that in the last turn of the game, either one of us could have moved a squad about 3" to the left, and claimed that upper left quarter. Instead, we both assaulted each other! So it ended in a draw.

Being chaos, I could still feel good about myself. I killed alot of stuff, and rushing into combat regardless of scenario conditions seems oddly in character... but, I blew it. Especially since I had the last turn, and could have slipped a squad of plaguebearers into the empty quadrant. Oh well, live and learn... Next time I would READ the scenario.
 

GAME TWO

Game two was against Steve, and his son/grot assistant Steve, with a Speed Freak army. (Oddly enough, we both drove out from the same area, but had never met before.) Since I have been out of it for so long, I had never faced this army, so it would be something new for me. The scenario was The Messengers, which was a cool scenario. I was a bit unprepared for it, and I think my army was at a bit of a disadvantage to his faster, shootier army.

So, here's the initial positions. I've got the rcultists, terminators and predator in the center, and a rhino with plague marines on ech flank. There is a messenger behind each group. I really wish I had taken only 7 plague marines (I took 10) so I could fit the messengers in the rhinos, but it's not like they would last long anyway.

The zoomie guys had 5 bikes in each of three groups, the flankers had 3 buggies each, and there were 3 trucks near the center, one carrying some sort of auto-hit, massive damage, kill my stuff type gun, the other two had a bunch of troops (also with lots of big guns...)

So, they're off! On the left, the rhino is popped open, but the marines jump out and kill off all the bikes in an assault. The cultists advance, retreat, then advance again (the retreat again, next turn...) as the terminators wade through the indecisive mass of rat-mutants. The bikes assault, but are wiped out by the terminators. On the right, the plague marines jump out of their rhino, and assault the bikes, but do horribly, and get bogged down in a disasterous combat...

We were wrapping up turn four when it was announced that there was 10 minuted left. My opponent asked if we should quit, but since everything was mostly in combat, our generals and escorts were within an assault move of each other, and one of my messengers was about 1" away from the exit zone, I wanted to press on.

At the time, I figured it was a gamble. My terminators were one casualty away from dropping below 50%, and the last plague marine on the right was about to die, so even the 200 points I would get from exiting a messenger would not make up for the VP's for these casualties.

It turned out pretty bad for both of us. Not only did I take the expected casualties, but my lord died as well. The only thing that made it worth my while was that his general and last remaining bodyguard (each with only one wound!) ran away. This put the game very close, with the messenger being the deciding factor.

I won, only barely escaping a second draw. I think we both only had one messenger survive, since we both used them in assaults. But go figure, it was chaos vs. orks... :)
 

GAME THREE

Game three had me facing off against Marines. The game was suicide squad. Very cool scenario, though I kind of botched the sceario again. I chose my cultists as my suicide troops. 21 guys with no armour, hitting on a 3+ in assaults seemed like the good way to go.

Here's the early game shot... I've got one rhino flanking around the left, with the terminators skirting the hill. The suisidal rat-mutant cultists are running up the middle, and another rhino on the right flank. He's got e land raider and a tac squad on the right, terminators, a dread, and two heroes in the center. On the left WERE some suicide scouts, but they didn't even last a turn. So, he got his 100 VP for having them die, but I got a +1 to me end results for not having them do any damage to me before they were annihilated.

Within the next few turns, I made probably my biggest mistake. He was ignoring my cultists, so rather than assault with them, I dicided to roll a TON of dice by standing still and firing all lmy guns (almost all pistols & shotguns). While they did take out a terminator, they were unfortunately not taking casualties either...

In the end-game shot, you can see where my troops on the right (behind smoking rhino) had pinned the tac squad against the table edge. I'm not sure how it works, but for some reason they got an auto-rally at the edge, so even though they blew countless morale checks, I had to kill every last one of them. (Don't know how that works, chaos marines don't get it, just imperials...)

In the center, the cultists are running, but still alive, much to my disappointment. We asumed that they had to be dead, not just running, to count for the scenario VPs. So not only did I lose out on getting 100VP for this, but I actually took a penalty of -150 VP. But since they were routing, my opponent still got his 114 VP for the squad. Once again, I blew the sceario... If I had assaulted them several turns earlier, I could have been taking massive casualties from the terminators!

The tac sqad in the center was all but killed. The last two guys got ran from combat. I was pinned there by the dread (which did not run), so they got to rally the next turn. (That ability also lets them rally under 50%?) Along the back edge, there are a bunch of plaguebearers who had run down the imperial general. Behind the big rocky hill thing, our terminator squads mutually destroyed each other, though my lord had to run in to finish off the his terminator chaplain.

In the end, it was a draw. Once again, if I had only played the SCENARIO better, I could have done much better. But my chaos instincts once again got the better of me. That 'Best General' award will NEVER be mine. :)
 

WRAP-UP

The day was alot of fun. Even considering I had two draws and small margin win. In fact, I think this is what made all three games exciting. All three came down to the wire. A better general would have siezed some of the opportunities I missed and probably would have done much better.

I did do well in the painting arena. Although I didn't get the Best Painted or Best Army, I did walk away with the Best Single Figure (for my chaos lord) and Player's Choice. I got alot of flattering compliments from the other players, and actually felt a bit awkward about the attention. But if anyone is reading this, I appreciate the kind words.

I unfortunately didn't get any pics of the other armies. I barely had time to run around to fill out my players choice ballot (while my opponent was unpacking). But there were some really cool armies. There were two Deathwind armies, both very nice, as well as a Tau army, and this impressive scratch build ork battlewagon. I think all of these guys won awards of some sort as well. I wish I had gotten pics. (If any of you have your armies posted somewhere on the net, let me know and I'll post a link here!)

Very fun time. There is another event planned for sometime in  March, and I'm hoping to make it there once again. I'm also hoping to see some RTT events in NE Ohio as well.